Ubisoft
Ubisoft Entertainment (formerly Ubi Soft) is a computer and video game publisher and developer headquarted in Paris with operations in more than 20 countries. It is one of the largest game publishers in the United States and Europe. As of 2004, it is the third-largest independent video game in Europe. 19.9% of shares in the firm are owned by Electronic Arts.
The five brothers of the Guillemot family founded Ubisoft as a computer game publisher in 1986 in France. Yves Guillemot soon made a deal with Electronic Arts, Sierra On-Line, and Microprose to distribute their games in France. By the end of the decade, Ubisoft began expanding to other markets, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
In the early 1990s, Ubisoft initiated its in-house game development program which led to the 1994 opening of a studio in Montreuil, France. That year Michel Ancel created the Rayman character. Ubisoft became a publicly traded company in 1996 and continued to expand to offices around the globe, opening locations in Shanghai and Montreal.
In 2000, Ubisoft acquired Red Storm Entertainment, a game development studio that had already been famous from its Tom Clancy games. That same year, the company also purchased Blue Byte Software. By 2003, Ubisoft reported operations in 22 countries, nine of those having production or design offices. Ubisoft had a number of successful and award-winning games that year, including Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, XIII, Rayman 3, and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield. Ubisoft's revenue for 2002-2003 was 453 million euros and the company employed 1900 people (1300 in production). As of 2004, Yves Guillemot, a founding brother, is the chairman and CEO of Ubisoft.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Ubisoft committed itself to online games by getting behind Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, The Matrix Online, Shadowbane, and the European and Chinese operation of EverQuest. The publisher established ubi.com as its online division. But in February 2004, Ubisoft cancelled the online portion of Uru and backed out of the publishing deal on The Matrix Online. Regardless, only a week later the company announced its acquisition of Wolfpack Studios, developers of Shadowbane.
